James is the boy who leaves the narrator in Taylor Swift’s “august” storyline.
The song presents a fictional teenage girl recalling a short summer relationship with James. He is already connected to Betty, so the narrator understands that the romance is temporary even while she hopes it might become something more lasting.
James is one point in Folklore’s three-song narrative often called the teenage love triangle. “august” presents the unnamed girl’s perspective, “cardigan” centers Betty, and “betty” gives James a viewpoint of his own. The three tracks overlap through names, memories, and emotional consequences.
The narrator of “august” is not officially given a name in the song. Swift said she imagined her as “Augusta” or “Augustine,” but those are descriptive ideas rather than a confirmed canonical name. James, by contrast, is explicitly named in the broader story.